A World of Chances, Left Behind
by OR
Summary: !!!Chapter 4 Posted!!! Post The Telling. Dreams, Saturday morning spats, two men and a baby, back from the dead, out to dinner, mentally and physically disabled hospital. Please R
1. Back From the Dead

Story: A world of chances, left behind  
  
Chapter: Back from the dead.  
  
Rating: PG 13 at the moment for minimal course language but the rating will probably change later when I get into it a bit more.  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own it and if I did I can guarantee that the second season wouldn't have ended like it did. JJ Abrams owns it and he'll have it how ever he damn well wants  
  
A/N: Okay it finally got to me. I said that I wouldn't do this but here I am, again. I was going to wait until I'd seen the ep but I guess that I'll have to improvise. Now you have to be nice to me because I haven't actually seen any of the second season of Alias as I live in Australia and 24 is currently ruling the Alias spot so bare with me. Please Read and Review. All advice and criticisms welcome. Thanks.  
  
Chapter Summary: This picks up directly where 'The Telling' left off. Vaughn picks Sydney up in Hong Kong and he's got some explaining to do.  
  
~*  
  
Sydney stared at him. There was little else that she could do. The most amazing person that had ever entered her life was sitting in front of her, telling her that she had been missing for two years and nobody had any recollection of where she had been.  
  
She gaped like a fish out of water and tried her hardest to remember how to breathe. The first words after an endless moment of silence were a stutter of confusion. "What? What? What the hell are you talking about?" She climbed on to her shaking feet and began to pace the small room. "I want answers! This has to be some kind of sick joke! Who the hell are you?"  
  
Vaughn knew that time would need to be allowed before she came round to accept that she was no longer living in the world that she had left almost two whole years ago. "Syd, would you please sit down." He said putting his restless hands between his knees and holding them there.  
  
"No! No, I will not sit down. What the hell is this? What have you come back from? Where's my father? Where's Will? What date is it? God help me." She folded her body in two at the waist and started to breathe in steady breaths.  
  
Vaughn's heart broke. She was not the only one confused beyond belief but she was the main character in the whole messed up, thing, was the only word for it. "Look," He began climbing to his feet and walking to her, he touched her arm gently only to have her pull away and stalk across the room, "Syd. This is all messed up. You think I know anymore than you do, then you're wrong. I came back from my world, I don't work for the CIA anymore, I couldn't, not after you died."  
  
"I'm not dead!" She yelled waving her arms around, knowing that this had to be some horrible nightmare that she had to wake up from. "I have to be dreaming! Tell me that I'm in a coma or something, and that you're just a figment of my imagination. Please tell me that."  
  
"I wish that I could tell you that but then I'd be lying and I don't lie." He tried to reach for her again when she dared to move close enough to beg for a way out.  
  
"Don't you fucking touch me!" She pulled herself into a tight ball and slid down the wall and onto the floor. She rocked back and forward in the fetal position. She wanted to cry but was too confused to let the tears come. She fought them, the same way she'd fight the nightmare that she was living in.  
  
"Sydney please, let me help you." He crouched in front of her but didn't dare to touch her. "Let me take you back to LA. You can see Kendall and he'll help you. You need to get your life back in order. I promise that I'll explain everything to you on the plane. Please, let me help you." He held out a hand.  
  
She stared at his out stretched hand. She didn't know if she should trust him or not. If this was her Vaughn then she had nothing to worry about, but there were so many unanswered questions. Questions that may never have answers. She would take her chances she decided and took the outstretched hand.  
  
~*  
  
She slept for a good part of the flight, leaving Vaughn to contact Kendall, arrange paperwork and start answering the questions that had started to circle in his own mind.  
  
He avoided going near her as much as possible. What ever was going one in her mind at the moment was painful and the biggest pain was probably his betrayal. He eased his own mind by telling himself that he thought that she was dead. It had taken a long time but he's gotten past it, out of the CIA and over Sydney Bristow. He'd married, so what, it wasn't a crime. Maybe it had been in a moment of weakness but to spite himself, he had learned to love his wife, even if he didn't love her at first, he loved her now, more than ever. He wanted to go home to her, to his son and his dog and pretend that it was Sydney's nightmare and that he was never apart of it. Maybe it was selfish to want her out of his life, but he loved his wife, maybe he was afraid that he loved her more.  
  
"Why are you watching me like that?" Sydney said opening one eye and lifting an eyebrow. "It's creepy." She sat up and rubbed at her tired eyes. She knew that it was real now and had calmed down enough to begin to process this new beginning. She was dirty and bloody, she discovered when she took a closer inspection of herself. She needed to shower and fast. She felt so dirty and so incredibly alone.  
  
"I wasn't - ah" He rubbed the back of his head and placed one hand on his hip. "I didn't realize that I was even -"  
  
"Don't worry about it." Sydney cut him off sensing the awkwardness and starting to feel the same way. "So are you going to tell me what I missed or were you going to let me sleep the whole way and make me guess?"  
  
He sat, he didn't want to but he did. "There's some stuff that I haven't been cleared to tell you. Do you understand that?"  
  
She nodded. She really wanted to scream and pull her hair but decided that acting like a spoiled little brat wouldn't get her anywhere with mature adults.  
  
"Okay. First of all it's the year 2005 and Holly Cutex is the President, the first female president might I add." He gave her a history lesson to delay breaking any type of bad news, not that he thought any news he had was good news.  
  
"Vaughn, I don't really care who the President is and how she got there, who she's been sleeping with behind her husband's back and what state the democracy's in. I want to know about me. What the hell happened while I was gone?" She got up to pace, dusting dirt and dried muck of her sweater as she went.  
  
"Okay, but you asked." He said and stood to join her pacing. "You just disappeared. I went to your apartment to pick you up and the whole thing was just a wreck. Do you remember, we were going to go to Santa Barbara?"  
  
"That's the last memory that I have." She smiled softly remembering that gentle moment in his car when he touched her and kissed her. "Well the good memory anyway. My last memory is passing out on the floor in my room and Francie was dead, I shot her. Michael, it's like it only happened yesterday. How can you stand there and tell me that I have missed two years of my life? It's just not fair. What happened in those years?" A question that was more directed towards herself then to Vaughn. She stared out the window. Clouds, endless sky in different shades of blue, it would haunt her and she knew it.  
  
"I don't know what happened to you." He walked to her and stood behind her. She hadn't cried for her lost years yet, just when she saw him the first time in Hong Kong. She was so confused, but then again, who wasn't? "I ran inside but you weren't there. Francie - Allison was there. She was dead, she had bled to death on your bedroom floor. I searched all over the house, I found Will semiconscious in the bathtub but no sign of you. I called back up and broke down. Weiss took me home where I stayed for so long that I don't even remember. I quit the CIA and started working at a law firm in administration." He watched her back as it all came back in one painful reminder.  
  
She kept her back to him as she looked out of the window. She had so many questions that she couldn't wait to ask anymore. She whirled around to face him, "What happened to Francie? Is she dead? Sloane planted Allison didn't he? Where's Will? Is he okay? How's my father? Did you catch my mother? Is Sloane dead? Tell me!" She gripped his shoulders and shook him. "Tell me!"  
  
"I'll tell you what I know, which is next to nothing." He gripped her back to stop her from shaking him. Whether or not he meant to, he pulled her into his arms and just held her there. "Allison was sent in to take Francie's place and report back to Sloane. We don't know when she was put in place but we think that it was some where near the time that we brought SD6 down and Sloane went MIA. Speaking of, nobody's saw him for a while after you went missing, whether or not he's surfaced since, I couldn't tell you. Are you okay?"  
  
She pulled away from him and strolled back to the chair that she had been asleep on and sat, she put her hands between her knees and focused on a spot on the floor. "I'm listening, please keep going, I need to know."  
  
He also sat. "Syd, I don't know how to tell you this but - when Will was stabbed and strangled - he suffered a lot of brain damage and went into a coma."  
  
She looked at him, desperation showed in her eyes and they finally started to well. "You said that he was okay. You said -"  
  
He crouched in front of her and put his hands on her knees, "I know what I said. Sydney, Will's still alive and he is okay, but he suffered a lot of blood loss and the strangulation was bad, he's in a home. He'll spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair and he has to be monitored constantly. I go and see him all the time. He has minimal brain damage but he still has his memory. Which is a good and bad thing when you consider what he's been through over the years. He'd really like to see you. He, unlike many of us, never believed that you were dead. He said that he wouldn't until he saw your lifeless body. I'm so glad that he was right." He smoothed out a piece of her hair and tucked it behind her ear. "He was one of the good ones."  
  
Sydney smiled through her tear-streaked face. Her Will was in a wheelchair, he would never be the fun loving idiot he once was ever again. It made her sad. "I want to see him, I really do." She nodded before leaning back to look at the ceiling and running both hands through her hair. "What about my parents?"  
  
"Disappeared." Vaughn said simply. "Nobody knows or pretends to know. Your father disappeared after you died, he made sure that I knew that it was all my fault that you were dead before he packed up and left. Nobody's seen him since that I know of and your mother escaped that night and nobody knows what happened to her either." He watched the emotions on her face swim from confusion, to love and back to confusion at the mention of her parents. "Kendall may know what happened to them or may have had a call from your father. That I really don't know."  
  
She breathed in heavily and tried to beat back the tears. "And what about you? You're married. What's your wife's name, is she nice?"  
  
"Syd -" Vaughn began but was just cut off.  
  
"No really, I want to know." She sat and looked at him with keen interest.  
  
He sat on the chair opposite hers in the little flying sitting area and sighed. "She's really nice. Her name's Kate and we have a son." Vaughn saw the wound gash deep in Sydney, he looked away and forced himself to keep talking. "His name's William, after my father of course. We're really happy. A typical family really. Pretty little house in the burbs and a dog. It's quite boring actually. No SWAT teams invading you house in the middle of the night, no waiting around, wondering if your wife will make it home from work in the afternoon."  
  
The tears had gone and just left Sydney with a blunt anger that she was going to punch out of the next civilian that crossed her path. She climbed to her feet and stalked angrily across the cabin, entered the bathroom, slammed the door at her back and broke down crying.  
  
~*  
  
LA was, in a word, a dump. Litter lined the streets and the city seemed almost broken. Two years really screwed up the world. But Sydney found as she entered the big glass doors of the LA CIA field office that the building hadn't changed a bit and the buzz of the insides were much the same.  
  
The same receptionist that had tended to her on her first trip in to the building was still sitting behind the powerful desk answering phones. She almost fell over when she saw Sydney. The whole room went amazingly quiet when they spotted Sydney alive and Vaughn back in the building.  
  
"Do none of you have work?" Kendall asked stepping into view. The room imeaditly began to buzz again and Kendall crossed the room to shake hands with his two stray agents. "Come to my office."  
  
They followed him. Neither of them had said more than they had to, to each other since the plane. They exchanged no glances, no words and no friendly gestures that they had once upon a time.  
  
Once they were settled in Kendall's office, he was the first to speak. "Well Agent Bristow, I won't pretend that we were ever expecting to see you again. Or you Mr. Vaughn." He addressed each of them in turn. "Agent Bristow, I have to ask, will you be joining us again or will you be finding alternate means of living."  
  
Sydney's throat was raw and she needed water. She spoke, her hoarse voice catching occasionally. "I don't feel as though I am equipped to answer that question at this time. I have just discovered that I have been missing for two years and I have no idea what happened to me in that time. As it happens, nobody else knows where I've been or what I've been doing because they all thought I was dead. I will however, agree to all necessary testing."  
  
"That's good of you Bristow." Kendall spoke, "But not today. You need to rest -"  
  
"That is not the policy." Sydney interrupted.  
  
"I'm the boss and I make the rules. Fall in line, for your own sake. You're not in good shape Bristow. I'll have someone organize somewhere for you to stay and you can come in tomorrow for all necessary testing." Kendall began to pick up his phone to call his assistant.  
  
"She can stay with me." Vaughn spoke and was glared at by both Kendall and Sydney.  
  
TBC. 


	2. Testing Nightmares and Cottage Kitchens

Story: A world of chances, left behind  
  
Chapter: Testing Nightmares and Cottage Kitchens  
  
Rating: PG 13 at the moment for minimal course language but the rating will probably change later when I get into it a bit more.  
  
Disclaimer: Not mine. Don't want it. JJ Abrams has it. And wants it. And might I say that it's a good job on his part. (I still hate the ending JJ - which is why I'm trying to change it so it's the way I'd like it to be. Actually I wouldn't like it to be this way at all) I still don't own it.  
  
A/N: Okay I've read 'The Telling' like a million times now and I still hate it. Of course we can't have the happy ever afters yet but it's still annoying. So I'm back with the next chapter of "take someone else's plot line and fuck it up a bit more" but hey Vaughn in frilly aprons!!! (that's my major selling point by the way) Now you kind of have to have seen 'The Telling' or at least read it to get some of the bits, (but lets face it - most people have) coz there's some references - okay there's a few references that you won't understand if you haven't seen/read it. You have to know who says what. Simple. Anyway I'll also say again that I haven't seen the actual episode yet so some stuff might be a bit messy. Enough of my raving. Enjoy.  
  
Summary: It's back to the CIA for Sydney. Nightmares plauge the darkness and testing lingers closer. Vaughn in frilly apron (selling point) ~*  
  
Screams echoed all around her, black was all she saw. Panic streaked through her entire being. She felt her own voice projecting through the room. She was now screaming with the infant wail. Pain and torture, and such terrible cold.  
  
A pair of strong hands gripped her and shook her until her eyes rolled open.  
  
"Sydney! Sydney! Wake up!" Vaughn continued to shake her. He didn't yet know why he had allowed her into his home. Why he had offered and insisted that she accept, that he wouldn't have her spending the night alone.  
  
Kate stood in the doorway and watched as her husband shook his ex-lover awake. Shock registered on her face as the screaming subsided and the heavy breathing replaced it. Kate was suspicious of this Sydney Bristow that had come to stay with them. She kept a close eye on her and didn't sleep well at night. She had to know people to trust them, to know them you had to get involved and talk and share common interests. As far as Kate was concerned, the only thing that her and Sydney Bristow had in common was Michael and she wasn't sharing.  
  
Sydney gripped her head and waited for the screaming inside of her head to stop. She pushed Vaughn away from her and sat all the way up. He was fussing over her and she shoved at him to stop him, he was talking fast offering water and towels, she kept refusing and shoving at him. It was then she spotted Kate, standing in the doorway, watching him fuss. "Michael," she said without taking her eyes off Kate, "go back to bed, I'm going to be fine."  
  
"Are you sure?" He said climbing to his bare feet and looking concerned.  
  
"Yep." She smiled at him as though nothing had happened, that the nightmare had never been there. "Go, sleep, I'm good. I'll talk to you in the morning." She flicked the covers off to reveal her legs that stretched out of the shirt Vaughn had given her to sleep in, she climbed out of bed and shooed him out of the door and closed it. Once the door had been closed, she sighed and walked back to the bed. She knew that it would be pointless because she would spend the rest of the night tossing and turning, thinking about the dream.  
  
~*  
  
Sydney showered, put on the only clothes she had and made her way down Vaughn's stairs, egar for some breakfast.  
  
Aromas filled the cottage styled blue and white kitchen. Vaughn was standing in the middle of the kitchen in a frilly apron that matched the décor, making bacon, eggs, toast, bake beans and pancakes.  
  
"Feeding an army?" She asked snagging a piece of toast and taking up place at a kitchen stool. He smiled at her and didn't say any thing as he filled the kettle, so she threw in, "And planning to audition for a Broadway musical."  
  
He stopped now and put his hands on his hips. "Yeah Syd, that's real funny. Why don't you come over here, put on the costume and man the eggs while I take a load off?"  
  
"Thanks, but I'll be right." She laughed and took another bite of toast. "So where's Kate this lovely morning?"  
  
"She's gone for a walk." He said, still a bit sensitive of the situation, he showed off but picking up the pan and flipping the pancake cooking in it high into the air and catching it again.  
  
"Bravo, well done." Sydney clapped because he needed it not because she was impressed (although she was).  
  
"Thank you." He took a bow and placed the pancakes in the oven with the eggs and bacon so it would stay warm. "Kate will be back soon so, I was thinking that the three of us could eat together before heading into the office."  
  
"Yeah cool." Sydney agreed. She couldn't get over Vaughn standing around in a frilly apron making breakfast. She climbed to her feet to make coffee. "Vaughn, was - is there anything of mine left from the apartment? Do I have any photos, clothes, anything?"  
  
Vaughn put the last of the pancakes in the oven and turned to face her. The frilly blue and white apron matched the oven mitt that he now wore. "I think - that your father has most of you photos. I guess he thought, some where inside, that you were still alive. But as for anything else, you'd have to find your father, which no one has yet done. The man is brilliant."  
  
"Yeah," She smiled lightly, "he really is."  
  
"He'll probably show up now that you're back. He'll still be looking for you." He said reassuringly taking her hand.  
  
"He's out there looking for me?" Sydney snatched her hand back, not sure what she'd do if she didn't break the contact. She paced to the other side of the counter and placed both hands on its smooth surface. "Is he out there looking for me?" Desperation sounded.  
  
"I don't know." Vaughn admitted looking at his hands and sliding the mitts off. "When he left - before he left - he said that it was my fault that you were gone. I didn't know what to do, I thought that maybe, it was my fault. But he never said that you were dead. I'm sorry."  
  
"That's okay," Sydney paced now looking at the floor and shaking her restless hands. "I have to find him, my father, will you help me?"  
  
"Syd," Vaughn set the mitts on the counter, "that's not who I am anymore. I have a job and a family. I can't leave them. I'm really sorry."  
  
She wanted to feel hurt that he wouldn't help her but she didn't. She didn't need him anyway and she wasn't about stealing another woman's husband so she left it. "It's okay, really it's okay. I just need to organize my life, get back on track and I'll be fine."  
  
"And I want to help you with that but I can't do much more for you than to offer money and accommodation for you until you can get back on top of things. I can't - no I won't go skipping around the world. I'm sorry for that, but I just won't."  
  
"No, it's fine." She was walked out of the room, needing a moment to breathe. She stepped into the backyard where a swing set was sitting patiently. She thought it odd to have a swing set for such a small baby. Vaughn hadn't waited long she realized. She would have been gone about two months before he'd given up hope. Give about three or four months for Kate to step into her shoes and then a wedding and the baby got nine months and he was about two or three months now. No he didn't wait long at all. She sat and stewed on it when she discovered that the baby wasn't the one using the swing set. A small tribe of children in fairy and pirate costumes rounded the corner and helped themselves to the yard.  
  
"Who are you." A young boy with a patch over his eye and a wooden sword asked Sydney when he spotted her.  
  
"I'm Sydney, who are you?" Sydney asked watching the children carefully as they pooled around her. She counted seven, four fairies and three pirates including the one who had addressed her. If she stood on the seat that she had taken when she first stepped out, sprang hard off it and rolled the landing with a quick recovery she could bolt to the fence and clear it easily. She shook her head, *they're only children* she reminded herself, she had never had a problem with children before.  
  
"I'm Captain Jason." The boy of about ten replied with the traditional accent of pirates. "And these are me hearties, Tim, Brad, Casey, Janet, Rose and Tina. Why are you on our ship?" He pointed his wooden sword at Sydney.  
  
"I'm just visiting, your - uh, heartie Michael let me stay a while." She said standing and edging closer to the door back into the safeness of Vaughn's pretty kitchen.  
  
Kate opened the door. "Ah, it's the pirates, quick Sydney, save yourself I can handle them." Kate swung out the door to pluck the nearest tinkerbell into her arms and threw her over a shoulder. She ran into the backyard and was followed by the other children.  
  
Vaughn stepped out soon afterward and stood next to Sydney as Kate and the children battled in the center of the yard. "Kate loves the kids next door. She lets them play fairies and pirates here all the time. We have a good time."  
  
"I can see that." Sydney laughed as Kate was pulled to the ground and sat upon by seven little bodies.  
  
"I guess there's enough breakfast for all." He said turning back inside. "We'll bring the food out and set up the table and have a feast on our fine ship. Care to give me a hand, damsel in distress?"  
  
"Yes I will, prince 'I'm so full of myself' charming." She said and followed him back to the kitchen to set up the breakfast.  
  
~*  
  
"What is your name?"  
  
"Sydney Bristow." She replied. She hated testing, she hated being questioned like some criminal. Still Kendall had gone easy on her. He should have thrown her in a cell as soon as she had walked through the door, no, as soon as she had made the phone call.  
  
The man doing the questioning looked at some charts and read her brain straight of the monitor that she was wired up to. He was in his mid fifties and bald. Little reading glasses sat on the end of his nose as he read the questions off a clipboard. He didn't look mean, but he did look like he knew what he was doing. "Are you an agent for the Central Intelligence Agency?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Did you work as a double agent for the CIA as part of an Alliance cell known as SD6?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Have you ever betrayed the US government intentionally?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Have you had a relationship of a sexual nature with former agent, Michael Vaughn?"  
  
"Yes, but I hardly see the relevance in that question." She gripped the arm of the chair. "Who writes this? Honestly, who cares if I've slept with every one on the West Coast of America?"  
  
"I'm sorry if this offends you Ms. Bristow but I'm required to cover all grounds in the reports that I've been given." His smile was kind and genuine.  
  
Sydney set her jaw and looked away from him. Damn him for being nice. She nodded when he asked her if he could continue.  
  
"Were you aware that Francine Calfo, was in actual fact Allison Georgia Doren before your confrontation in your apartment?" He was ready for the storm, he had done this many times before and these questions always hit hard.  
  
"God what do you think? I just let my friends turn into secret agents behind my back? Do I look like I had any clue?" She breathed heavily as the monitors to her right beeped away, reading off data. She looked down at the floor and ignored the tears that were making their way down her face. "I didn't know until she came after me in my room."  
  
"Would you like to tell me?" He asked carefully.  
  
She swiped at the tears and went in to standard report mode. "I was dropped of at my home by former Agent Michael Vaughn. We were going away for a few days, we were happy." Memories were flooding back to her now.  
  
*"So I did it."  
  
"Did what?"  
  
"I booked the hotel."  
  
"No you didn't."  
  
"Yes I did."  
  
"You did?"  
  
"Mm-hmm."  
  
"Santa Barbara."  
  
"Three nights starting tonight. I mean, it was probably the greatest phone call I've ever made."  
  
"Well, you're a genius."  
  
"Thank you." He kissed her then.  
  
"So after the debrief I'll come and pick you up."  
  
"Okay."*  
  
"Then I went inside and Francie - uh - Allison was there and I spoke with her, about her day, about Will. Nothing important really. Then I checked my messages and I had a message on there from Will."  
  
*"Sydney, it's me. Listen, this is going to sound insane but I just found Provacillium in the bathroom and I think that... I think that... uh, okay, just think about it. I think that the double is Franc--*  
  
Will's voice echoed in her mind as the interviewer studied her and made notes. He didn't interrupt her, he'd wait it out, that was the best way.  
  
"So I gave her some ice cream, did I say that? I got ice cream from the freezer. She ate it. Francie hates coffee ice cream."  
  
*"I just remembered. Francie doesn't like coffee ice cream"  
  
"No she doesn't"*  
  
Sydney sat very still. The memories stung like hell. She was sharing her life with a criminal. It did explain a lot. How the apartment ended up bugged, why Francie was acting weird all the time. Oh she wished that she had figured it out sooner.  
  
"Agent Bristow," The interviewer spoke now, "will you tell me what happened after she took the ice cream?"  
  
"I left, I went to my room to get the gun. I knew that it wasn't really Francie. Something had to be off. So I went to get the gun. She followed me." Sydney remember checking to make sure the gun was loaded and then Allison -"  
  
*"Francie doesn't like coffee ice cream"*  
  
"We fought," Sydney continued, every blow registering on her face, every movement the wrong one in her mind, "we fought. We went through glass and windows, over benches and into walls. And in the bathroom, I saw Will. He was dead, he reminded me of Danny, dead." There were tears again but she didn't wipe them away. "I woke up in Hong Kong. I don't remember anything else besides waking up in Hong Kong."  
  
"Nothing at all?" The interviewer looked at her amazed. "You were gone for two years and you don't remember anything?"  
  
"Yes. I see things in my dreams, well I don't really see them, everything is black and it's really cold and there's screaming." She was so confused, her mind couldn't take anymore of the strange emptiness that she constantly felt since she had woke up in Hong Kong. "The screaming of an infant - of a child. I don't know what it means but it happens."  
  
"It's okay. I think we'll leave it there for today." He touched her arm gently. "Sydney, will you come and see me some time? I am a departmental psychiatrist and I want to help you. I really want to help you get your memory back. Would you mind undergoing hypnosis?"  
  
"Do you think that it would help?" Sydney asked, as she was unhooked from the machines. "You think that I would be able to remember something at a subconscious level?"  
  
"Yes, I think that you could remember a lot. Would you like to make an appointment?" He handed her, her coat and walked her to the door.  
  
"Um - sure, okay."  
  
~*  
  
"Sydney, are you okay?" Vaughn jumped up when she entered the conference room they had put him in. He rubbed his hands up and down her arms.  
  
"Yeah," she nodded, "I'm gonna be fine. We have to go and see Kendall now. He wants to speak to both of us. I don't know why." She threw in when he opened his mouth to speak. She smiled weakly at him and moved away towards to door.  
  
He followed her down the hall and into the office that Kendall still manned.  
  
"Sit." Kendall ordered as soon as the both of them were inside and the door closed. All the while he remained behind his desk, the power position. "Sydney I've briefly looked over your results from testing. Are you okay?"  
  
"Yes, I'm fine." Sydney nodded resisting the urge to roll her eyes.  
  
"Okay, moving on." Kendall continued. "Sydney, I know that Mr. Vaughn would have filled you in on all data we gave him. Is that correct Mr. Vaughn?"  
  
Vaughn nodded, "Yes sir that is correct."  
  
"Take the man out of the job but never take the job out of the man." Kendall muttered and looked back to Sydney. "Then you are fully aware that we have no idea of the whereabouts of your parents. We have several agents in different countries on look out for them. I think that they would have changed their images some how but they're out there soon. Your mother is still on the CIA's top ten most wanted along with Sloane but your father is just wanted. The man is brilliant. We believe that they are in Europe somewhere, together."  
  
"Wait just a minute." Sydney held up a finger to Vaughn who had also dropped his jaw and was about to say something. "You think that my parents are out there living together? Like together, together, or just working together?"  
  
"I'd say together, together." Kendall replied. "Nobody's seen or heard from them since you disappeared. They aren't running their own intelligence or we'd know about it. That means that your father is housing a fugitive."  
  
"Why couldn't they be running their own intelligence without you knowing about it?" Vaughn finally got a word in. "You said yourself that the man's brilliant and Derevko's pretty brilliant herself.  
  
"Mr. Vaughn, there is a reason why you're here." Kendall put his foot down half way through Vaughn's tangent and repeated calmly. "There is a reason why you're here but I'll get to you in a minute. Sydney where would they go? Do you know? Can you remember anything that might be able to help us find your parents or Sloane?"  
  
Sydney chewed on her bottom lip, she didn't know anything that could help them. She shook her head. "I don't know anything but I'm fully willing to help in the mission to recover my parents and to find Sloane. If that's alright with you Director."  
  
"I was hoping that you'd say that Agent Bristow." Kendall said extending a hand to her.  
  
She accepted his hand and shook it. "When do I start?"  
  
"Right now." Kendall said releasing her. "You can go out to my secretary and tell her to call the news stations, Sydney Bristow needs her daddy after being missing for two years."  
  
"Right away sir." She said leaving the room in search for Kendall's secretary.  
  
"Now Mr. Vaughn," Kendall said sitting again and looking directly at Vaughn. "Would you like to join us again now that Agent Bristow is back?"  
  
"I can't do that." Vaughn said looking at his hands. "I have a wife and kid now Director. I can't just get up and leave whenever I feel like it, nor can I when you say jump. I love Sydney, part of me always will, but I can't help her this time. I have to think of my family."  
  
"Well that's your decision." Kendall picked up a file and handed it to him. "What if I said that I didn't want you to come back to fly around the world. I just want you to be Agent Bristow's handler and do some basic desk work for me. It won't harm your family in any way. I promise you that."  
  
Vaughn sighed, he would have a lot of explaining to do when he got home. "Okay, but can I start next week?"  
  
"Yep." Kendall said climbing to his feet and shaking Vaughn's hand as he did with Sydney. "Welcome back. Now go home and break the news to that lovely wife of yours and I'll see you in your old office next Monday."  
  
"Yes sir." Vaughn said and left. Home to break the news he thought. What fun.  
  
~*  
  
Sydney was on the news that night. Her image was projected to over two hundred English speaking countries and twelve non-English speaking countries.  
  
"I request to my father, Jack Bristow, if your out there, please come home, I need to see you. If any one knows where my father is or has contact with him. Please contact the police. I really need my father back. Please Daddy."  
  
"God I look like a sap and I sound it too." Sydney said to herself as she sat on Vaughn's couch.  
  
"I don't know, it looked kind of real to me." Kate said entering the room and sitting next to her. "Sydney, my husband quit his job to go back to the CIA. Do you know how hard it is to hear that?"  
  
Sydney shook her head. "No, and I'm not going to pretend to understand. But I wasn't the one who asked him to return and it sure as hell wasn't my idea."  
  
"Well let me tell you. If he gets hurt, I won't be able to live. Over the past year and a half, he's become my whole world. I can't lose him and I won't. If he gets hurt, I will pull him out of the CIA and I will drag him far away. Away from the CIA, away from LA and away from you. Do you understand?"  
  
"Yes, I do." Sydney met Kate's icy stare with one of her own. "He made the decision. Not me. So don't you blame me for something that is not my fault." She climbed to her feet and headed upstairs to the room she was staying in until she had some money and an apartment of her own. She didn't make Vaughn do anything, but she couldn't help feeling like the cause. She swore to protect him no matter what. For his wife and son.  
  
~*  
  
Jack sat. He watched the TV like he'd never seen it before and on the screen was his daughter begging him to come home. His wife spoke very quickly on the phone in Russian as she paced around behind his chair.  
  
"Sydney." The word escaped his lips like a song. He'd been searching and searching and here she was.  
  
A hand touched his shoulder and a beautiful female voice sounded in his ear. "Yes darling, but we can't go to her. She will come to us, she is strong."  
  
"I've searched the world for her and I haven't been able to find her and now, there she is, waiting for me."  
  
"My love, she is working for them. Right now, your daughter is the enemy. Mean while we have a lead and we must go to Russia."  
  
"How can you be so sure that she will come to us. At least without an army behind her." Jack said moving to the TV screen and studying his daughter's image.  
  
"Because," Irina said, "We created her." 


	3. Blast from the Past

Story: A world of chances, left behind  
  
Chapter: Blast from the past  
  
Rating: PG 13 at the moment for minimal course language but the rating will probably change later when I get into it a bit more.  
  
Disclaimer: Oh if it were mine I wouldn't have an overwhelming urge to kill JJ Abrams for what he has done to all the S/V shippers. So I must say that JJ owns it and all the other stuff.  
  
A/N: Chapter 3. I will admit that I had given up on this story. I had better things to do but now I'm back to it and I hope all who read it enjoy it. I live in Australia and we are so behind the times. We have only 3 hours of 24 left until we get Alias season 2. (of course we've been downloading episodes off the internet) Anyway enough of me. Geneissen  
  
Summary: An old friend is about to make their way back into Jack and Irina's lives but will his presence be welcome? Meanwhile Sydney's desperate search for her memory takes an unexpected twist.  
  
~*  
  
Irina moved like a quiet shadow along the dark walls of the psych ward of the Lord of Mercy hospital.  
  
There was hope, the contact might very well still be in one of the rooms waiting for her to come. But she knew that he wouldn't be forgiving and neither would she. Oh there was a past, an evil past but it was time to return.  
  
A nurse rounded the corner of the dark corridor and Irina pushed herself up against the wall as hard as possible hoping that the nurse didn't see her.  
  
She stopped by a janitorial cupboard and opened it triggering a light. She sensed someone moving behind her, working in the psych ward someone was always trying to escape, she spun around.  
  
Irina launched a fist into her face knocking her back into the cupboard and to the floor, she pulled out a handgun and pointed it at the poor nurse. "Which room is Neilvi Prolochavitch in these days?"  
  
To scared to move the nurse remained on the floor on her back, she could feel the blood on her face. She stuttered, "Uh. he's, he's in number uh nine."  
  
"Thanks," Irina said holstering her gun. She began to walk away but stopped, "You might want to get some ice for that nose, I think it's broken." She swung the door closed locking the nurse in.  
  
She kept moving and soon came to a room with a big nine marked on the door. She tried it but it was locked, aiming her gun at the lock, she fired three shots and kicked the door in.  
  
Alarms sounded as soon as the door was opened. The gunshots had been heard by Jack sitting out side in the get away van.  
  
"What the hell did you do?" Jack's voice sounded in Irina's ear.  
  
"Would you give me a minute please." Irina said, quickly trying to determine if the lump huddled in the corner was conscious or not. "You know Jack a little credit wouldn't hurt."  
  
Jack scoffed and sat watching the floor plan of the hospital, red dots for security guards, several red dots were heading towards room nine. Jack was hoping that that credit would kick in any time because he was ready to create a diversion.  
  
"It's you." The lump said as Irina cautiously crossed the room to it.  
  
"Yeah it's me. How have they been treating you here?" She stood over him to be intimidating, casting a darker shadow over him.  
  
"Like crap," He coughed, "So did you just come to create an uproar or am I saved."  
  
"I've come to get you, or kill you, which ever works better for you." She said pointing the gun at his head.  
  
"That depends on the terms, what do I have to do to live?" He pushed to his feet, making Irina look up at him.  
  
"Work for me." She replied simply still with the gun aimed at him.  
  
"Well it was working pretty well before, what happened?" He said circling her.  
  
"Is that a yes?" she followed him with the gun knowing that he was one to pull a stunt like running or strangling her.  
  
"Of course." He walked to the door and peered out. "I hope you know where you're going." He looked at the now flashing red corridors.  
  
"Jack get us out of here." She spoke into her comm.  
  
"Right." Jack started typing away at his computer, enhancing the scene. "Go to your left there should be a corridor along that left hand side that will lead you to a stair well. It's all clear."  
  
"Left," she commanded and they both began running.  
  
They ran for about twenty meters before rounding the corner. A sign hanging from the roof told them that there was a staircase. Irina led the way into the staircase and they began their descent.  
  
"There are security guards about to enter the door you just passed." Jack informed them.  
  
"Run," Irina yelled spinning and shooting the first guard that entered the doorway. She jumped the rest of the flight and kept running.  
  
The security guards were now firing back at them as they fled.  
  
They burst out of the door at the bottom of the stairwell and ran for the exit. Three guards were on wait there. Guns were aimed at them as soon as they were spotted.  
  
Irina shot one guard directly in the center of the head, while the former lump grabbed the other two and slammed their heads together.  
  
They admired their work for about five seconds before the door to the stairwell swung open again and a hail of gunfire erupted.  
  
Irina tried to push through the glass door but found it locked, she shot at the glass before kicking the panel out. It shattered on the ground with an amazing bang.  
  
Jack pulled up in the van and they piled in. Irina slammed the door and Jack drove as fast as possible.  
  
When they were far enough away Jack turned to face the man they had just extracted. "Hi William, how have you been?"  
  
~*  
  
Sydney rubbed her aching head. Three days and still nothing. Her father had seen that broadcast and she knew it. Why wasn't he responding?  
  
Waiting offices of any kind were annoying, the CIA's waiting rooms were the worst.  
  
She had made an appointment with Dr. Bridges - the testing man - just like he had suggested and was about to undergo her first hypnosis.  
  
"Sydney." He opened the door and his arms. "How are you."  
  
She went to him. There was something about him that you wanted to trust. She had only met him once and he was acting as though they were old friends. "I'm fine, how are you?"  
  
"Oh, managing. Please come in and have a seat." He moved aside and allowed her to enter. "Would you like some tea or coffee?"  
  
"No thank you." She replied sitting on his long violent red couch. "I'm a bit anxious."  
  
"Don't be, I'm going to take care of you. I'm really glad that you decided to come and see me." He wheeled a machine over to her and gently began to stick the little wired pads on her face. "Lay back and relax."  
  
She did, she looked at the ceiling for a minute before letting her eyes wander the rest of the office. Degrees from Harvard University lined the bare walls, other walls were lined with shelves full of books from 'The art of Psychology' to Dickens and Roberts. A lonely desk sat in front of a large window that overlooked LA and several chairs were placed strategically over the room. All his furniture was antique and covered with outrageous materials. Sydney liked this man.  
  
"Okay are you ready?" He said taking up a seat near the monitor and was armed with a notebook and pen.  
  
"Yes I'm ready." Sydney closed her eyes and took a deep breath.  
  
"Picture your self walking in pure nothing. You don't know where you are going and you don't know where you come from. You don't know your name, you know nothing. You look in to the vast, spacious nothing and you become tired. You lay down on the nothing and sleep. You are asleep but still listening to the sound of my voice."  
  
His voice was smooth and caring, Sydney listened closely not wanting to do anything wrong as she slipped carefully into a peaceful sleep.  
  
"What can you see Sydney?"  
  
"Nothing, only black." She was so tired now. She was so tired that there was no onset of panic when she realized that she knew nothing.  
  
"The blackness fades and you are on the streets of Hong Kong. How did you get there?" He studied the monitor as she called up the image in her mind.  
  
"I don't know." The image fluttered back. A red light was flashing. She frowned as she tried to climb to her feet but was too weak. "I'm in an alley."  
  
"How did you get in the alley?" Dr. Bridges asked pushing his little reading glasses up to his eyes and glancing at the monitor.  
  
Sydney frowned again. Damn flashing red light. "I really don't know, there was a car. It was maybe black." Her head spun as the events of that night suddenly went backwards. "A black car, a Mercades. There is a smell like expensive cigarettes and men laughing."  
  
"What happened between the time when you heard the men laughing and when you woke up?"  
  
Sydney considered it. "I was unconscious. I couldn't see properly and I was dizzy. The smell of the cigarettes was making me nautious. I'm cold."  
  
Dr. Bridges crossed the room and got a blanket out of the closet, he went back to where Sydney was still frowning and laid it gently over her. "Why are you frowning Sydney?"  
  
"There is a red light, it's flashing and it's annoying."  
  
"Just relax." He opened one of her eyes and checked her responses to a light.  
  
"I'm just gonna call Kendall." She said stirring a bit in the chair.  
  
Bridges assumed that this was the bit were she contacted Kendall from a phone booth. He had a feeling that he was attacking this whole thing from the wrong end "Let try something a bit different. You are back in the nothing. Take me to Will dead in the bathroom."  
  
Sydney shuddered. "I was scared, I hit her."  
  
"Who was it that you hit Sydney? Do you remember?" Bridges asked making notes on the machines beeping.  
  
"Francie, only it wasn't Francie - it was Doren. There was a lot of fighting and shooting. Glass everywhere." She shuddered a bit and stirred.  
  
Sydney threw a draw at Francie.  
  
"What happened after your fight with Doren?" Bridges asked still scribbling on a note pad.  
  
"I don't remember." Sydney frowned. "Blackness I guess then there was a helicopter, but I can't see properly and I'm very weak. I don't remember anything else."  
  
"Okay Sydney, I think that will do for today. You are in the blackness again and when I say 'now', you will wake up. Three, two, one, now."  
  
Sydney opened her eyes and felt amazingly refreshed, like she had just been sleeping. "So what do I remember?" She asked keenly.  
  
"Not a lot, you remember feeling dizzy quite and a helicopter but that's all. I want you to make another appointment for next week and we'll work on it some more. What do you think?" Bridges pulled the little wired pads off her and wheeled the machine away again.  
  
Sydney chewed on her bottom lip for a minute feeling that this whole thing was a waste of time and that she would never get her two lost years back. She sighed, it wasn't going to happen in one session. "Yeah okay then."  
  
"Good, good. I'll see you next week then." Bridges hugged her just as he had when she walked in the door. "I'll see you next week then."  
  
"Yep." Sydney said and left.  
  
When Sydney had gone, Dr. Bridges sat at his lonely desk and read over the notes that he had taken from Sydney's brain patterns and her memory.  
  
He reached over his desk, picked up the phone and hit one of the speed dial buttons.  
  
"Hello." The young British voice answered.  
  
"She remembers little to nothing." Bridges replied.  
  
"Good," the voice said again, "let's keep it that way.  
  
~*  
  
"I'm never going to get my own apartment." Sydney said when her and Vaughn arrived home from work that day.  
  
"You just have to keep looking, something will come along." Vaughn replied swinging the door closed behind him. "Meanwhile you're free to stay here."  
  
"Thank you. I'm going to jump in the shower." Sydney headed for the stairs.  
  
"Yeah, then you're going to have to tell me all about your appointment with Dr. Bridges." Vaughn said going his own way towards the kitchen.  
  
"Yep sure thing." Sydney went upstairs to shower.  
  
When she returned in her flannel duck pajamas, Vaughn was on the phone talking very seriously.  
  
"I don't think that it's necessary sir." He spoke into his mobile phone while pacing the lounge room.  
  
There was a pause when Vaughn was listening to the other persons reply and then he spoke again. "I'm fully aware that you are the boss but where is the point in sending her off to Russia when we don't even know if they will still be there and they probably won't be. I mean, we don't even know if that was them."  
  
Another long pause. "Yes, okay fine." He hung up the phone and turned to where Sydney was standing in the doorway.  
  
"So, what is happening in the world of espionage this evening?" she asked leaning against the door jam and watched his frustration ease.  
  
"Nice pajamas," He complimented looking her over from head to toe.  
  
"Yeah I had a feeling that you would." She said sarcastically. "So what's going on?"  
  
"Apparently there was a break in and out of the Lord of Mercy hospital in Russia. Kendall thinks that your parents were involved." Vaughn informed her.  
  
"My parents?" Sydney gasped, suddenly unable to stand still, she began pacing the lounge room just the way Vaughn had been only minutes ago. "What happened?"  
  
"Well some guy called, Neilvi Prolochavitch broke out last night, assisted by a woman with a Russian accent and a very powerful right hook." Vaughn continued. "Sound like your mother?"  
  
"It could be, but how many women out there have Russian accents and a great right hook? It could have been Anna." Sydney said trying not to get too excited about the prospect of see her parents again.  
  
"Yes that's true." Vaughn considered. "The nurse who was assaulted said that she didn't get a very good look because the woman had a gun pointed at her and she was too scared to move."  
  
"Well both Anna and my mother fit the 'get what I want and take down as many people as possible in the process' description." Sydney said dully, still pacing.  
  
"Well Kendall wants to know who this is Neilvi Prolochavitch guy is." Vaughn continued. "His file is being sent here guarded by four US army officers, must be big."  
  
"Great," Sydney replied, "Something to read."  
  
Vaughn scoffed, "Yeah well be prepared because we're going there now."  
  
"What?" Sydney stopped pacing long enough to look at Vaughn in disbelief.  
  
"Go and put on something that won't quack if you sit on it the wrong way, Kendall wants us in there for a briefing, now?"  
  
"I guess that neither of you will be wanting any dinner then." Kate appeared in the door way now.  
  
"Not at the moment darling." Vaughn said going to her and pulling her into his arms.  
  
Sydney made a quick retreat to change and left Vaughn with his steaming wife.  
  
~*  
  
About a dozen agents filled the room that Sydney and Vaughn had just entered. Kendall was standing at the front of the room waiting for them to arrive.  
  
"Welcome take a seat." Kendall summoned them forward and they took seats at the table just in front of him.  
  
Many of the agents, Sydney had never seen before. She scanned the room, seeing a few familiar faces before her eyes locked on someone she hadn't yet to reacquaint herself with yet.  
  
Eric Weiss was sitting at the far end of the same table. He smiled at her and she smiled back, astonished. He mouthed 'good to see you' at her and she mouthed 'you too' back.  
  
"Well now that we're all here, I'd like to start." Kendall addressed the room. "At approximately four hundred hours standard west coast time, two people we believe to be the fugitives Jack Bristow and Irina Derevko, broke into the Lord of Mercy hospital in Russia and freed a man known to them as Neilvi Prolochavitch. Prolochavitch has little if no record there -"  
  
"Then why are we all here if we have no where to go on the Prolochavitch case?" Sydney asked, angry that she had been called out of her warm pajamas for this.  
  
"This may have very well involved your parents Agent Bristow." Kendall said.  
  
"You, for some unknown reason, have just assumed that my parents are involved." Sydney said standing. "Didn't you not, only a few days ago tell me that there was no way that my parents were running their own intelligence network? Prolochavitch could have been wanted by anyone. How do we know that it wasn't Anna Esponsoa that freed him? Or even someone one following Sloane's orders?"  
  
"Agent Bristow, please calm yourself and sit down." Kendall ordered, staring at Sydney like an angry owner would with a disobedient dog.  
  
Vaughn pulled on her hand and she went stubbornly into her seat.  
  
"Prolochavitch did give us something to look at." Kendall passed around copies of his mental health check. "These records show a supposed mental illness, schizophrenia. He kept talking about how the government we're looking for him, that 'the man' would come back for him and that the power would soon be known, that Ramboldi was right about everything and that Laura had made a believer out of him."  
  
"Laura Bristow?" Vaughn tested. "Whoever this Prolochavitch was, knew Irina as Laura Bristow."  
  
"That's what we believe Agent Vaughn." Kendall replied. "That means that while Derevko was under the alias of Laura Bristow, she gathered a following or plotted to break from the KGB and start her own net work with Prolochavitch."  
  
"But wasn't she working with Kassanau?" Sydney asked confused.  
  
"Somehow I don't think she worked with anyone, they all worked for her." Kendall offered, pouring himself a glass of water.  
  
"But you think that this Prolochavitch was working as a partner?" Vaughn thought that he might have found something.  
  
Kendall sipped at the water for a moment staring at the blank white wall of the room. He sighed and put down the glass. "This is what I think. Derevko came here in duty to her agency, she already knew about Ramboldi before she came, she offered to do this because it gave her time to plot and to plan what she was going to do with Ramboldi. She was here, being a good wife and mother while plotting world destruction. She might have been out for a walk one day when she meets Prolochavitch, they talk and whatever and he decides to join her in her plots. Some time passes, she fakes her own death and returns to Russia, she bides some more time and the KGB falls, she's free. Prolochavitch joins her in Russia. Over the next twenty years they build up a following, the whole world's on their tails. Everyone wants a slice of Ramboldi, perhaps Prolochavitch wants a bigger slice then Derevko is willing to hand over, there's a fight, Prolochavitch ends up in a mental home."  
  
"I just find one flaw in that theory." Sydney spoke dryly. "Prolochavitch is a Russian name. They way you are talking, he is an American. Now your either right and he is an American and Prolochavitch is an alias or he's Russian and we are once again no where."  
  
"You're right." Kendall sighed. "Do you remember hearing anything as a child. When you were with your mother at home or walking threw a park? Anything at all?"  
  
Sydney shook her head. Her mother had known that she wasn't a stupid child. Her mother was a smart woman, otherwise she never would have fooled her father as long as she did. "No I know nothing."  
  
Kendall opened the brief case on his desk and handed Sydney a photo. "Did you ever see this man as a child?" He asked handing her a photo of Prolochavitch.  
  
"No." She replied.  
  
"I did." Vaughn said staring at the picture in disbelief.  
  
Everyone looked at him waiting for an explanation.  
  
"That's my father." 


	4. Two men and a baby

Story: A world of chances, left behind  
  
Chapter: Two men and a baby.  
  
Rating: PG 13 at the moment for minimal course language but the rating will probably change later when I get into it a bit more.  
  
Disclaimer: I'm sick of doing this already. I was hoping to come up with something witty for every chapter but soon discovered that I don't have humor so I'll just say: "Refer to chapters 1 to 3."  
  
A/N: Thanks heaps to my reviewers. AnnaSun, Leo's lil sister and Mrs. Harris seem to be the most devoted so thanks heaps to them.  
  
If you are interested in other great post 'The Telling' fics, check out 'The other side of the Story' by Leo's l'il sista.  
  
Well I still haven't seen 'The Telling' which is annoying. I'm trying to download it off the internet but I think that it's just going slow to spite me. I have this entire story planned out, almost to the last detail and the whole thing is practically written. I would still like some feed back. Thanks a lot again to my reviewers.  
  
Two hours of 24 until Alias!!!! Yay!!!!  
  
Summary: Dreams, Saturday morning spats, two men and a baby, back from the dead, out to dinner, mentally and physically disabled hospital.  
  
~*  
  
Sydney stirred in the darkness of her room.  
  
Images flashed before her eyes as the room spun faster and faster. Sloane let out an evil laugh, Sark blew her a kiss, a baby screamed and her father was tied to a chair.  
  
She sat up, eyes wide and breathing heavily. She glanced at her watch, it read nine thirteen. She scrambled out of bed cursing the heavy drapes that cut every inch of sunlight from the room.  
  
She ran quickly downstairs to find Vaughn and Kate sitting at the breakfast table, chatting with William cooing on Kate's knee.  
  
"Morning." Kate greeted the flustered Sydney. "Did you want some coffee?"  
  
"What?" Sydney stared at them being so normal. She took a second to think tossing the dream aside she came to the sense to ask what day it was.  
  
"It's Saturday," Vaughn replied, amused that she was panicking about being late for work, "here's the paper."  
  
Sydney took the paper from him and sat down at the table. Damn, she felt like an idiot.  
  
Kate put coffee in front of her and was thanked for it.  
  
"Are you okay?" Sydney asked Vaughn when Kate returned to the kitchen to make some toast.  
  
Vaughn nodded vaguely, "I don't really think this is the time or the place to discuss it but I will later."  
  
Sydney recognized that as her cue to shut up about her father but the dream edged conversation.  
  
"Vaughn?" Sydney began sipping her coffee.  
  
"You never call me Michael." He replied looking at her and smiling.  
  
Both of them seemed to think the same thing at that time.  
  
"I do sometimes." They both said in unison and started laughing.  
  
Kate spun around from her post at the toaster to observe the scene, she couldn't help but smile, watching two grown people laughing their heads off.  
  
"I don't believe that you remember that." Vaughn laughed.  
  
"Me. I can't believe that you remember that." Sydney retorted. "To me that only happened a few weeks ago."  
  
"Yeah," Vaughn said suddenly calm. That was the truth, she had just skipped two year of her life and she had no filling in them, so there for they mustn't have existed to her. "Well I remember it because it was the day that you said that you were leaving the CIA and I thought that I'd lose you forever."  
  
"You ended up losing me anyway." Sydney said sadly.  
  
For a few moments there was complete silence in the Vaughn household kitchen - then Kate cleared her throat.  
  
"Sydney what would you like on your toast?" She asked, plopping the two pieces on to a plate angrily before trotting over to table and slamming the plate down in front of Sydney.  
  
"Uh - I'll get it." Sydney said climbing to her feet and making her way to the fridge.  
  
Vaughn stared up a Kate from where he was sitting. His expression said 'what?' She looked back at him with and expression that screamed every obscenity in the English language and a few others.  
  
"I'm going for a walk." She said still glaring before plucking William off the floor rug she'd laid him on when she went to make Sydney's toast and storming out.  
  
Vaughn didn't try and stop her. She had every right to be angry.  
  
"I'm sorry." Sydney said lamely. She stood in front of the fridge door with a tub of butter in one hand and a jar of strawberry jam in the other. Her hair was messy and sat everywhere possible on her head, her fluffy duck pajamas were slightly askew and she was wearing one discolored sock.  
  
Vaughn smiled. The sight of Sydney would never cease to amaze him no matter where he was. He felt a strange longing for her but quickly remembered his wife and adverted his eyes to a crumb on the table. "No it's okay, I shouldn't have said anything. What was it that you wanted to ask?"  
  
"Oh, I don't know if you can help me because you've been away from the CIA as long as I have but, do you know what happened to Sark? Is he still in custody?" Sydney said taking her seat again and started spreading her toast.  
  
"No idea." Vaughn looked puzzled. "The thought never really crossed my mind."  
  
"Well I think that I might ask Kendall when I get to work on Monday morning." Sydney said putting the piece of toast in her mouth. "So do you wanna talk about last night?"  
  
"It's just weird I guess." Vaughn sighed. "I mean, he's alive and he's working for your mother. Isn't that weird?" He grappled for support.  
  
"That is weird." Sydney agreed biting into her toast. "How are you about it?"  
  
Vaughn hesitantly looked at her. "I don't know really. Confused I guess. I hardly slept." He scrubbed his hands over his tired eyes. "What was it like for you?"  
  
"Painful." She said in a word and left it at that.  
  
Silence hung over the kitchen for several minutes, daring one of them to speak.  
  
I was Vaughn that broke it. "So what are you going to do today?" He asked.  
  
"Apartment hunting." She replied grinning. "Feel like joining me?"  
  
"Oh why not." Vaughn said making Sydney smile. He smiled back.  
  
~*  
  
"Mr. Sloane." Sark greeted as he walked in to the small apartment.  
  
It was amazingly tiny and smelt badly of rotten fish. That was explained as the fish market that stood in the street running parallel to the apartment.  
  
"What is it Sark? And how many times have I told you to call me Arvin?" Sloane replied, staring out of the window at the busy streets below.  
  
"Fine Arvin. Our mole contacted me last night, every thing is in order." Sark informed. "We will be free to leave in the morning."  
  
"Good, I'm starting to get sick of this fish." Sloane replied turning away from the window.  
  
On the bed in the center of the room, resting on the world's ugliest bedspread was a tiny sprawled mass of arms and legs.  
  
For such a small thing it could produce a lot of noise.  
  
Sloane moved quickly across the small space and pulled the child into his arms. He cooed over it and rocked it.  
  
Sark watched in keen interest as Sloane started to hum a familiar tune. Sark remembered it from his childhood. When he had a mother and father. He could not see their faces anymore. He hadn't been able to recall their faces for a long time.  
  
"Hush beautiful." Sloane whispered to the child. "Hush my beautiful Emily. She's hungry Sark."  
  
"What do you want me to do about it?" Sark looked shocked that Sloane would actually have a space somewhere in that rough exterior for a heart. He, Sark, had disposed of his heart long ago.  
  
"Well then hold her while I go and get a bottle for her." Sloane ignored Sark's stuttering protests as he dumped the child in his arms and headed to the single benched area that had enough room for a small sink and a kettle. The fridge stuck out of the end like it didn't belong, Sloane opened it and produced a pre-made bottle and proceeded to heat it.  
  
When Sloane turned around, Sark was holding the baby at arm length. He and the child were surveying each other with keen interest. Sloane raised his eyebrows. "Sark what one earth are you doing?"  
  
"I have absolutely no idea." He said with out breaking eye contact with her.  
  
"She will get cold if you continue to hold her like that." Sloane informed him before turning back to the heating bottle.  
  
Sark swayed a bit, he was considering putting it on the bed and jumping out the window. "I don't know the first thing about babies." He said still wavering.  
  
"What do you want me to do about it?" Sloane mimicked.  
  
"Help!" Sark suggested in a worried voice as the child began to scream.  
  
Loud ear piercing screams that were met with Sark's fretting and yelling over her to Sloane for help.  
  
Sloane snatched her off Sark and went back to the heating bottle.  
  
"What is this?" Asked a familiar voice. "Two men and a baby?"  
  
"Thank god." Sark said hoping that this entrance would make for his escape.  
  
"Good morning Allison." Sloane greeted without looking up at her.  
  
"Wass up?" Allison asked putting one hip on the tiny little kitchen bench and watching Sloane go about his fathering qualities.  
  
"She doesn't like her daddy." Sloane stated.  
  
Allison laughed.  
  
Sark exploded. "Don't you ever call me that again." He threatened and walked out.  
  
"He seems to be in a bad mood this morning." Allison observed. "I think that I'm going to try and cheer him up."  
  
"You do that," Sloane replied. Before she shut the door he added. "We'll be leaving at oh seven hundred."  
  
"Sure thing." She was gone and Sloane was alone with the child just the way that he liked it.  
  
~*  
  
"Auugghh." Sydney let out a sigh of pure frustration. "I'm never going to find an apartment. I told you didn't I. You own me ten bucks."  
  
Vaughn sighed in defeat and fished in his pockets for ten dollars.  
  
He handed it to her, she snatched it from him and stowed it away in her own pocket.  
  
He was sure that they'd been to every real estate agent in LA and looked at more then a hundred apartments that we're either too big or too small or too expensive. He wanted to go to the gym where he could release some tension.  
  
They walked into the Vaughn household. Once inside, Sydney collapsed on the couch while Vaughn headed towards the aromas of the kitchen.  
  
"Hello beautiful." Vaughn greeted wrapping his arms around Kate and kissing her tenderly on the neck. "What's cooking?"  
  
"Blueberry pie for the church congregation tomorrow morning." She replied putting her head to one side as a silent request for him not to stop. "I was thinking that we could go out to dinner tonight."  
  
"Sure, where would you like to go?" Vaughn asked letting his hands roam all over her body.  
  
"How about to that restaurant on Beverly that you're so obsessed with?" She suggested.  
  
"Sounds good." He mutted to her neck.  
  
She squirmed out of his grasp and plucked William out of his bassinet in on the kitchen table and walked quickly from the kitchen.  
  
Sydney was lying on the couch, staring at the ceiling when Kate plodded into the lounge. Sydney looked at her lazily.  
  
"Sydney I was wondering if you would do me a favor." Kate asked jiggling William up and down in her arms.  
  
Sydney felt obligated to do the favor. She had put a strain on everybody as she had walked back into the world of the living. "Sure anything."  
  
"Baby sit for us tonight. My husband is taking me out for dinner." Kate said thrusting William into Sydney's arms.  
  
She sat up abruptly trying to balance the now screaming, wriggling mass. "What?" She wasn't quiet expecting that to be the favor. "Uh, do you really think that is wise."  
  
Kate started back towards the kitchen ignoring Sydney's protests. "Thanks." She shot back.  
  
~*  
  
Sydney felt sixteen again as Vaughn and Kate backed down their driveway. William was grasped firmly in her arms staring up at her with curiosity.  
  
"Why are you looking at me like that?" Sydney asked the baby who just looked back at her through his big brown eyes and stuck his tongue out. "Yeah right." She laughed and closed the door. "So what do you wanna do?"  
  
William just kept his tongue out and stared at her.  
  
"We're you born with out a blinking mechanism?" She asked him. "I suppose that you don't want to go clubbing and get really drunk. How about a cab to the mentally and physically disabled hospital?"  
  
~*  
  
"Can you please tell me where I can find Will Tippin?" She asked the lady at the front desk when she arrived. William firmly placed in a pram.  
  
"He's in room forty one. But he should be in the main game room at this time. He really likes a good game of poker." The nurse that was standing about two meters away answered.  
  
The grumpy looking front desk lady shrugged her shoulders and went back to her magazine.  
  
"Come with me." The smiling nurse gestured. "What a beautiful baby, is he yours?"  
  
"No, he's not. I'm babysitting for a friend of mine." Sydney said pushing the pram along side of the nurse who smiled at everybody she passed. "So do you know all of your patients by name and room number or did Will hit on you?"  
  
The nurse just laughed. "Will's a sweet guy but no I know just about everybody here. They make me smile. Some of them are so funny, other are bitter but most are just simple people who like a good conversation. Will loves to tell stories."  
  
"Oh really." Sydney wondered. "What sort of stories?"  
  
"Oh," The nurse pondered for a minute, "wonderful stories of adventures to other countries and princesses kidnapped by wicked lords. There's one that he tells about a princess the tried to live in the world as a normal person, to hide from the wicked lord that was trying to kill her. She is fighting against the wicked lord with the help of her friends but some of her friend's work for the wicked lord. One day she has a fight with one of her friends and she disappears. He thinks that the wicked lord kidnapped her and took her back to his castle but the other friends think that she is dead. Great story, huh?"  
  
Sydney was mesmerized by the story. She knew very well that the missing princess was herself. "Did Will ever give this princess a name?"  
  
"Yes, he called her Sydney." The nurse informed as they rounded the corner and stopped in the doorway. "Here we are and here's a visitors pass for you. I haven't seen you around here before. Are you and Will related? He talks about his sister Amy a lot."  
  
"No, I haven't been here before. I just got back into town this week. I didn't know that Will was here until a few days ago. His sister Amy was killed in a car crash weeks ago - I mean years ago." Sydney spoke softly. "Thank you."  
  
"No problem." The nurse replied. "He should be over there at the poker tables." She point to their right near a big glass window that over looked the large grounds that the hospital was built on. "I didn't get your name." The nurse called after her.  
  
"My name Sydney." She said sparing the nurse a glance as the shock registered on her merry little face.  
  
Sydney broke into the biggest smile when she spotted Will's back hunched over a hand of poker.  
  
One of his opponents looked up at her and said. "I must have died, for there is an angel waiting to take me to heaven."  
  
Will first looked at his opponent the turned and saw Sydney. At first he couldn't believe his eyes. "Sydney?" He asked in disbelief.  
  
Sydney sobbed as tears quickly formed in her eyes and started to roll down her cheeks. "Oh god Will." Abandoning the pram and William, she dropped to her knees beside his chair and hugged him tightly.  
  
Will was shocked beyond belief he raised his hand to her head and patted her gently. His mouth hung open as if trying to form a word.  
  
She looked up at him trying to smile through her sobbing, tear streaked face. She touched his face gently. "God I'm so sorry. So sorry." She repeated as she tried to get her breath back.  
  
~*  
  
They sat in the cool late evening air of a balcony. William slept soundlessly in his pram while Sydney and Will sat across from each other at a small table.  
  
"Sydney, where on earth were you?" Will asked watching her.  
  
"I have no idea." She replied. "I have suffered some kind of memory loss and the past two years are a loss to me. I can't remember a thing from them. Are you okay? Vaughn said that you were suffering brain damage."  
  
"Vaughn? You've seen him?" Will asked.  
  
"Yes, I live with him at the moment" Sydney informed him.  
  
Will gasped, "Well I never - He always visits me. I think he does it because he doesn't want me to be lonely waiting for you to come back. I always knew that you'd come back."  
  
"Yeah, Vaughn told me that he visits you." Sydney studied her nails and decided that they could do with a bit of work. "So tell me how you are."  
  
"Yeah." Was all he said for several moments, thinking about how he would word everything. "I live here now. Francie was the double. I nearly died of shock when I found out, she didn't have to try and kill me."  
  
More tears formed in Sydney's eyes. "I know, I killed her. So Vaughn said that you were suffering from brain damage. How bad is it?"  
  
Will breathed in heavily. "Well it's not that bad. You know Vaughn just didn't want to get your hopes up. I am in this chair for life." He said rather plainly indicating his wheelchair. "Sometimes I forget where I am and what I'm doing. But that doesn't really last that long and I'm on medication that I have to take for the rest of my life to balance the chemicals in my brain that got mixed up in the coma. Don't ask me how it works it just does."  
  
Sydney sobbed again. She felt so sorry for her friend. "Will, when I get a place of my own will you come and live with me? It'll be like old times when we used to hang around and play poker and eat ice cream and we can have Michael and Kate over for dinner. What do you think?"  
  
Will considered it and then nodded. "Yes, I think that I would like to come and live with you Sydney."  
  
Sydney smiled and cried more. "We'll have so much fun together."  
  
~*  
  
A/N: Yeah so I evil. Big dealio. No really, that's a nice gesture by Sydney to Will and considering that they're like really good friends it would be really selfish on Sydney's part if she didn't offer to take care of her friend. Oh and I killed Amy too. Sorry bout that but at the time it seemed an interesting thing to do. It's one of those 'you didn't see it during the show' things. And as for Allison, yeah she's alive. You might say: "hang on a second - wasn't she confirmed dead in chapter 1?" and the answer is no. She was presumed dead by a disillusioned Vaughn who was recounting to Sydney his own movements on the night of her disappearance. The story of Allison's survival will be written into further chapters when I make it up. 


End file.
